People can be funny about titles. Funny good, and funny bad.

When I was in college, there was a guy I knew who worked in the school’s public relations office, and when it came time to order new business cards, he knew he was leaving his position soon so he decided to be funny – funny good – and had his title listed as “human being.“ Though that was bold for a stuffy, small New England college, I liked it. Years later I would borrow his title line for my own personal card.

When I started my second job after college, my title was Associate Consultant. After a year I was promoted to Staff Consultant. But I had to switch jobs a few years later in order for my title to be Senior Consultant. In my mid-20’s I was funny – funny bad – about my job title and wanting a “bigger” one, when the reality was that I did the same work despite what I was called.

A colleague recently lamented they hadn’t had the title of Vice President yet in their career. I laughed and said to do what I did: take the easy way out and start your own company, then you can name yourself whatever you want. When I did that, I wasn’t just the president – I was “founder and president.” This was the mid 2000s and being a founder was starting to be a big deal again after the dot-com bust. Even though my company was just one person – me – I was a founder, dammit!

On the flipside, a very good friend is president of her company yet she never uses that title. Instead, she uses Principal Consultant or something to that effect. Why? She’s more interested in a title commensurate to the work she loves, not that she runs a business. Her title also resonates more with her clients. It wasn’t until I saw her name and title on a contract once, then I made an extra effort to annunciate it, much of her dismay.

These days my title is “Senior Program Manager and Agile Delivery.” Why “and Agile Delivery?” A while back my organization was going through an Agile transformation and we thought it was a good idea to add that to titles. Then we stopped going through the Agile transformation, but my title remained the same. I’ve dropped the “and Agile Delivery” from my email signature and my LinkedIn profile, but I still see it internally.

Today masses of humanity are calling themselves AI Experts. Before that they were calling themselves Social Media Experts. Before that they were calling themselves Web Experts. Before that they were calling themselves Business Re-engineering experts. Before that… well, you get my drift.

So why all the talk about titles? I recently rediscovered a business card I got back in the 90’s that triggered this. I was at a fundraiser and sports broadcaster Mike Tirico, who at the time was working for ESPN, was in line right behind me at the entrance of the event. Someone came up to him and asked him for his business card, and as he was taking one out of his wallet, I asked him for one as well, to which he obliged. When I took a look at it, it showed his title as simply “talent.”

“Talent: is a title that is often given to people in media and entertainment. You will never see a prefix of “senior” or anything else with it. Perhaps this should carry over to the business world? In one word it simply says all that it needs to.

Deconstructing Job Titles

It doesn’t take long after accepting a title when you realize it’s merely an external moniker and what really matters is what you do and how you are compensated for it. For whatever the title, however, it is what we uniquely contribute to the job that matters, and that is our talent.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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